# Heartfelt beads above humidity



## cigarw (Nov 21, 2015)

Hi All,
I have a cedar lined thermoelectric cooler humidor and since I moved to FL from a place that was much dryer I've been having problems in maintaining my humidity low (although inside my home is around 62%). The humidity inside my humidor stationed between 74% and 75%, so I decided to buy 70% Heartfelt beads, and after having them for almost a month the humidity have not changed, in other words, they didn't make a difference. Most say they work very well, so am I doing anything wrong here? My humidor's internal dimensions are 12Dx16Hx14W, by using Heartfelt's calculator gives me a volume of 2688 which I should be fine with 1 pound of beads, I also never hydrated the beads as they are supposed to take moisture from my humidor, to measure humidity I'm using a salt calibrated Caliber III and the top part of a cigar oasis humidifier, they both show the same humidity&#8230;. And, of course can feel my cigars softer. Any light would be greatly appreciated!!


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## thebayratt (Jun 4, 2009)

Throw you some crystal unscented kitty litter in there in a separate bag and see if that doesn't lower the RH.
As for why your RH is that high? Ya got me. I gave up on the beads some time ago after I sprayed too much DW on them and they stopped working correctly for me.


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## elco69 (May 1, 2013)

cigarw said:


> Hi All,
> I have a cedar lined thermoelectric cooler humidor and since I moved to FL from a place that was much dryer I've been having problems in maintaining my humidity low (although inside my home is around 62%). The humidity inside my humidor stationed between 74% and 75%, so I decided to buy 70% Heartfelt beads, and after having them for almost a month the humidity have not changed, in other words, they didn't make a difference. Most say they work very well, so am I doing anything wrong here? My humidor's internal dimensions are 12Dx16Hx14W, by using Heartfelt's calculator gives me a volume of 2688 which I should be fine with 1 pound of beads, I also never hydrated the beads as they are supposed to take moisture from my humidor, to measure humidity I'm using a salt calibrated Caliber III and the top part of a cigar oasis humidifier, they both show the same humidity&#8230;. And, of course can feel my cigars softer. Any light would be greatly appreciated!!
> 
> View attachment 55492


I would pull the Cigar Oasis out. You have 2 different technologies to do the same job, overkill. CO are also known to go out adjustment and pump out more RH then needed. Just stick to the beads. Your beads may have been doing the job by trying to balance but the CO sees it dropping and pumps more RH out. Also, being in Florida, I would suggest somewhere down the road, switch to 65%, for me this improved taste and it give you way more room for RH and temp fluctuations.


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## cigarw (Nov 21, 2015)

elco69 said:


> I would pull the Cigar Oasis out. You have 2 different technologies to do the same job, overkill. CO are also known to go out adjustment and pump out more RH then needed. Just stick to the beads. Your beads may have been doing the job by trying to balance but the CO sees it dropping and pumps more RH out. Also, being in Florida, I would suggest somewhere down the road, switch to 65%, for me this improved taste and it give you way more room for RH and temp fluctuations.


The Cigar Oasis is just there to record humidity, I took the bottom part (water reservoir) out when I introduced the beads. the beads are working by themselves.


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## elco69 (May 1, 2013)

cigarw said:


> The Cigar Oasis is just there to record humidity, I took the bottom part (water reservoir) out when I introduced the beads. the beads are working by themselves.


Gotcha.....Try leaving the door cracked open for a day or so to see if it comes down. If your ambient RH is mid low 60's, then you are completely safe.


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## JimMarshall (Aug 15, 2015)

What colors are the beads? How many are in there? How big is the humidor? How many cigars? Does your cooler drain? Is that CO calibrated?


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## cigarw (Nov 21, 2015)

JimMarshall said:


> What colors are the beads? How many are in there? How big is the humidor? How many cigars? Does your cooler drain? Is that CO calibrated?


All is answered in the first post, heartfelt beads have no color and the humidor don't produce any condensation for it to drain...


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## cigarw (Nov 21, 2015)

elco69 said:


> Gotcha.....Try leaving the door cracked open for a day or so to see if it comes down. If your ambient RH is mid low 60's, then you are completely safe.


Left the door open for many hours and as soon as I closed it the humidity stated going up again. One thing that I notice is that if the temperature goes up to 73F/74F the humidity goes down to 72%/73%. Crazy... Really bad first time experience with heartfelt, may be a bad batch...


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## JimMarshall (Aug 15, 2015)

cigarw said:


> All is answered in the first post, heartfelt beads have no color and the humidor don't produce any condensation for it to drain...


Sorry, I seem to have had a brain fart. Your beads should be white. If they are colorless they are saturated and will need to be dried out.

Also, I wouldn't trust a salt test for a hygro. Get a Boveda pack for calibration purposes. RE the cooler - Are you sure it doesn't produce condensation? If it is cooling it has to be.


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## cigarw (Nov 21, 2015)

JimMarshall said:


> Sorry, I seem to have had a brain fart. Your beads should be white. If they are colorless they are saturated and will need to be dried out.
> 
> Also, I wouldn't trust a salt test for a hygro. Get a Boveda pack for calibration purposes. RE the cooler - Are you sure it doesn't produce condensation? If it is cooling it has to be.


Sorry... yes there are some colorless and some white, I put them in as they came, never hydrated them. As far as my hygrometers, I have them for years (along with other ones) and I can say they are on the accurate side. On top of that I've been smoking cigars for 20+ years and I know my cigars are being kept on a 73%/74%+ environment by the way they feel and smoke... I have this cooler/humidor for years, and I never noticed any condensation (and I looked for it before). As it is in a new environment now (new home) I will take another careful look.


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## JimMarshall (Aug 15, 2015)

What's the ratio of clear to opaque? If they are dry they will be bright white, if they are saturated they are completely clear. You can dry them in an oven on low heat (I believe the recommended number is 170 degrees) for like 15-20 minutes and put them back in and see what happens.


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## elco69 (May 1, 2013)

cigarw said:


> Sorry... yes there are some colorless and some white, I put them in as they came, never hydrated them. As far as my hygrometers, I have them for years (along with other ones) and I can say they are on the accurate side. On top of that I've been smoking cigars for 20+ years and I know my cigars are being kept on a 73%/74%+ environment by the way they feel and smoke... I have this cooler/humidor for years, and I never noticed any condensation (and I looked for it before). As it is in a new environment now (new home) I will take another careful look.


Sorry if it is hard to tell by the pic, but the beads should be about 30-50% white. This is what I use to gauge how much DW I use when I charge them up. IT holds pretty rock steady at 65% with regular temps in the house.


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## JimMarshall (Aug 15, 2015)

elco69 said:


> Sorry if it is hard to tell by the pic, but the beads should be about 30-50% white. This is what I use to gauge how much DW I use when I charge them up. IT holds pretty rock steady at 65% with regular temps in the house.
> View attachment 55508


I disagree. If he is trying to lower his RH that is high, dry them SOBs out like a piece of beef jerky - maintain the proper ratio of white to clear once you reach the proper RH.


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## elco69 (May 1, 2013)

JimMarshall said:


> I disagree. If he is trying to lower his RH that is high, dry them SOBs out like a piece of beef jerky - maintain the proper ratio of white to clear once you reach the proper RH.


Sorry, didn't mean for the fix, but once everything is normalized.


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## cigarw (Nov 21, 2015)

elco69 said:


> Sorry if it is hard to tell by the pic, but the beads should be about 30-50% white. This is what I use to gauge how much DW I use when I charge them up. IT holds pretty rock steady at 65% with regular temps in the house.
> View attachment 55508


Mine pretty much looks like yours, would say 30/35% white like the day I receive them. One thing that I've been observing lately is that when the room temp goes up, humidity inside my humidor goes down. If temp goes to 74F, the humidity inside my humidor goes down to 72/73%, as soon as the AC comes back on and temp goes to 70/71F, humidity goes up immediately to 75%.


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## SeanTheEvans (Dec 13, 2013)

Not much of this makes sense. An A/C running should lower humidity. 

If you keep the humi open, there's no way HF beads can keep it in the 70s while the room is in the 60's, that's a physical impossibility, unless we really think HF beads contain enough water to cause a 10% RH jump in a room.

So follow the suggestion of drying them out in the oven, and putting them back in to see what happens. Otherwise, it's really just a game of guessing without enough information.


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## cigarw (Nov 21, 2015)

SeanTheEvans said:


> Not much of this makes sense. An A/C running should lower humidity.
> 
> If you keep the humi open, there's no way HF beads can keep it in the 70s while the room is in the 60's, that's a physical impossibility, unless we really think HF beads contain enough water to cause a 10% RH jump in a room.
> 
> So follow the suggestion of drying them out in the oven, and putting them back in to see what happens. Otherwise, it's really just a game of guessing without enough information.


Its crazy, it seems like the beads are programmed to 75%... a bad batch. Will try the oven.


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## SeanTheEvans (Dec 13, 2013)

cigarw said:


> Its crazy, it seems like the beads are programmed to 75%... a bad batch. Will try the oven.


Doesn't matter what the beads are programmed to - they can only raise humidity as much as the moisture they contain. To be enough to change the RH of an entire room seems a bit cwazee. That would mean that like, 3 individual beads should be enough to control a 25ct humi.


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## cigarw (Nov 21, 2015)

SeanTheEvans said:


> Doesn't matter what the beads are programmed to - they can only raise humidity as much as the moisture they contain. To be enough to change the RH of an entire room seems a bit cwazee. That would mean that like, 3 individual beads should be enough to control a 25ct humi.


I don't know where this story about changing the RH of an entire room came from... What I did a few times was to leave humidor's door open for a couple of hours so the humidity inside the humidor would go down (the room is in the 60's), then I closed my humidor's the door with the humidity inside it being the same as the room (60's), as soon as I close the door the humidity inside the humidor starts going up again and stops at 75%.

After all the discussion here I can draw a couple conclusions:

1. Beads are bad - not working as they are supposed to, bad batch.
2. Somehow they are over charged and they can't work properly. (I never charged them and there are about 30-35% white beads). Will try the oven.


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## SeanTheEvans (Dec 13, 2013)

If the room is in the 60's, then just leave the humi open. That's where that story came from. 60's is fine for cigars, so instead of ever having to oven cook your beads, you could just leave it open. Not _just_ until it goes down to what you want (air exchange), but longer, so that the beads can release excess moisture that they are holding, and the cigars/other media you have in there can release it as well. If your wood is saturated at 70-something%, it's going to take a while to bring it down. The cigars would likely be at the same place. All of that moisture has to go somewhere. So just leave the door open and wait. Simple enough solution.

If you really let it all equalize in the 60's with the room, like I said, there's no way that the beads would still be "storing" enough moisture to bring things back up to the 70's, regardless of what they are programmed for. It's not like they hide water until you close your humi and then release it all into the air when you're not looking. It's science, the moisture has to either already be there, or it has to be added from somewhere.



cigarw said:


> I don't know where this story about changing the RH of an entire room came from... What I did a few times was to leave humidor's door open for a couple of hours so the humidity inside the humidor would go down (the room is in the 60's), then I closed my humidor's the door with the humidity inside it being the same as the room (60's), as soon as I close the door the humidity inside the humidor starts going up again and stops at 75%.
> 
> After all the discussion here I can draw a couple conclusions:
> 
> ...


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## Gdaddy (Sep 20, 2012)

Silica beads can't be programmed. 

They aren't a "bad batch".

They can be 'acclimated' to hold a certain amount of moisture but you can easily change that to the level you are seeking.

As Sean points out, if the room is 62% it's perfectly fine to leave everything out in the open including any cigars. All items, including the beads, will dry out and reach an equilibrium with that 62% level. In fact, you don't really need a humidor if it's a constant 62%. Consider your room as a walk in humidor just the same as a cigar lounge. It's much better than the 75% level inside the humidor.

Stop worrying so much. This is much, much easier than it seems.


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## bill1clinton (Sep 22, 2015)

Here's a theory based on my own personal experience (I have 2 x 1/2 lb of 65% HF beads in the same bags). I feel the bags filled with beads have a poor surface area vs amount of beads ratio which hampers the bead's effectiveness. The majority of the beads are not freely exposed to the air to allow it to regulate humidity effectively. I also have a pre-assembled 65% HF bead dish and I found it did a much better job regulating humidity with significantly less beads. So, I think you may want to try to separate your beads into smaller amounts with more air exposure and situated evenly within your humidor and see if that helps.

I could be completely wrong but this is my theory.


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## Gdaddy (Sep 20, 2012)

bill1clinton said:


> Here's a theory based on my own personal experience (I have 2 x 1/2 lb of 65% HF beads in the same bags). I feel the bags filled with beads have a poor surface area vs amount of beads ratio which hampers the bead's effectiveness. The majority of the beads are not freely exposed to the air to allow it to regulate humidity effectively. I also have a pre-assembled 65% HF bead dish and I found it did a much better job regulating humidity with significantly less beads. So, I think you may want to try to separate your beads into smaller amounts with more air exposure and situated evenly within your humidor and see if that helps.
> 
> I could be completely wrong but this is my theory.


You're correct in your thinking. The greater the surface area exposed the faster they can react. Packing them into tubes or bags allows the air to contact the outer perimeter first and slowly work to the middle. A flat pan with the beads spread would add much more surface area for immediate contact with the air.


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## gtechva (Mar 9, 2014)

I've had some acrylic and tupperware type humidors get too high rh. Usually my bad from over charging Bovedas or over saturating kl. I will leave it cracked open for a few hours, while near by. Check back periodically till it drops to 60 or so. A couple of hours after closing the humi, it's back up to 68 or 70 again. As stated, everything in the humidor, including the wood, if yours is wood, has to dry. The hygrometer merely measures the air in the container. After I close it, the cigars and humidifier (Boveda and/or kl) release enough to re-saturate the air. Takes several times of doing this to bring down the level. It just takes time to correct.


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## cigarw (Nov 21, 2015)

Thanks for all inputs and suggestions! Problem seems to be solved.... The beads come from Heartfelt already charged/overcharged, I ended up not using the oven but instead I used my large wine cooler to take moisture from them. Humidity inside the wine cooler is 40% and I left the beads in there for 2+ days, they came out 90% white, as soon as I placed them in my humidor the humidity immediately started dropping to the desired/expected level.


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